


From Nothing, To Everything

by turnedherbrain



Category: The Living and the Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Falling In Love, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-15
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2019-03-19 02:09:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13694661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turnedherbrain/pseuds/turnedherbrain
Summary: The story of Nathan and Charlotte’s courtship and marriage.





	From Nothing, To Everything

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Khaireddin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khaireddin/gifts).



**Spring**

Mary and Eliza, Charlotte’s two younger sisters, were crouched on the window seat, respective noses pressed up against the glass, in order to obtain the best view of their visitor.

“Oh – he’s handsome!” exclaimed Mary.

“And tall,” giggled Eliza, leaning precariously on her sister until she was prodded away.

“And courteous,” observed Mary, as their guest generously tipped the driver of the hansom cab.

“And – and, oooh, he’s looking up here!” ended Eliza, collapsing in a mirthful heap on the hearth rug in her haste to get away from her former vantage point.

“Serves you both right,” admonished Charlotte good-humouredly, still pinning up her red curls so they were tamed in something approximating a French pleat. “It is both a blessing and a curse to be the eldest child. A blessing, in that I might find another hearth and home sooner. A curse, because all my conquests have to be observed by my siblings.”

“Yet we must wait until we’re of age,” sighed Mary.

“And I don’t even want to be married. I want to be a doctor,” said Eliza passionately. Passion was a trait that ran starkly through the characters of all women in their family.

“First, you have to become a man. Then, you have to obtain a degree. Then, you have to obtain a licence to practise,” explained Mary patiently to her downcast sister. “And none of those are possible.”

“Then I wish with all my heart I was born in a later age, that affords such advantages to women,” mulled Eliza, still sitting on the rug and playing with her plait.

“Now, you two. If you promise to behave, you may take tea in the front parlour with us,” interrupted Charlotte, wanting to extract a promise from her sisters before they met their visitor.

“We promise,” chorused the two girls.

“It’s not like anything else exciting is happening today…” added Mary.

“… or this week…” continued Eliza.

“… or this month!” finished Mary, as they made their way downstairs to greet their guest.

 

Half an hour later, Charlotte was sitting uncomfortably in the stuffy parlour. She was tied up in a corset, with laced up boots and constricting stockings. All she longed to do was to take their guest and wander outdoors, anywhere. Somewhere far from here.

She noticed that Nathan’s hand shook slightly as his tea was poured. Nervousness. It made her like him all the more. Goodness knows he’d endured enough questions from her mother about his status, his family and his profession. None of which mattered to Charlotte.

Nathan was glad that he got a few minutes’ respite upon leaving the house, to talk to Charlotte alone. As before, her beauty and her bearing struck him quite dumb, but he sensed she knew that, and was doing her best to coax him out of that hermit crab shell he carried with him.

“May I see you again? A walk, perhaps.” He waited hopefully.

“That would be perfect,” smiled Charlotte. “I’m sorry this visit has been so… constrained. A walk in the park would be far more intimate, yet just as…”

“… seemly?” replied Nathan, understanding the social code that they were expected to follow.

“Exactly.”

Nathan gave a small, awkward bow. He was like a supplicant before a goddess. Just to know he would see her again was enough. She was a light, leading him out of the darkness.

 

**Summer**

The two men were sitting on the outdoor terrace at the club, Gilbert’s father the means of entry into this pleasant palace of indolence. The bees lay woozy on the fragrant flowerbeds, and the dragonflies hovered drowsily in the heat.

“And what is the name of this beauteous maiden?” enquired Gilbert. He was Nathan’s friend since their schooldays, and their friendship had endured for nearly two decades. Gilbert knew about the tight knot of remembrance that Nathan held inside. He’d kept vigil with him after Gabriel’s… demise. There was no-one who knew him better in the world.

“’Beauteous maiden’?” smiled Nathan. “Why, you sound positively Arthurian! You know very well. It’s Charlotte. And I am beyond measure in love with her.”

“Arthurian, hmmm? I like that you make such a comparison. I have been re-reading Tennyson’s _Idylls_ ,” remarked Gilbert. “As preparation for my Great Novel. And Charlotte has you enamoured?”

“’Enamoured’ – there you go again. We live in an age of science now, of rational explanation. The age of literature has been and gone, like an over-long novel read in instalments. Gilbert, you know what I advised you about your writing – far less preparation: much more doing,” joshed Nathan good-naturedly.

“Indeed,” mused Gilbert. “Look here,” he motioned, pulling a notebook out of his chest pocket. “Pages and pages of notes. I simply need to pull them together into a coherent whole, _et voil_ _à_.”

Nathan sipped his iced coffee and looked out over the club lawns. All of London high society was present, and Gilbert the best of it. Yet he would trade all of this for a mere minute in Charlotte’s company. Gilbert, noticing his friend’s far-off look, asked: “When will you next see the nymph?”

Nathan pulled a face, ignored the poetic phrase and answered: “Charlotte wants to know more about my work. I tried to explain: the work I do at the public asylum is not for her to countenance. Only the most monstrous sections of society seek to peer down at those unfortunate souls. And my private practice – is private. Which leaves my public lectures…”

“Which are not open to women,” frowned Gilbert, seeing the impasse.

“Yet she’s far more intelligent than the majority of my audience,” added Nathan, swirling the ice cubes in his cup.

……

Nathan’s next lecture was on an uncomfortably muggy evening in Wimbledon town hall. Organised by the local branch of the philosophical society, it was unusually well-attended: the new science of psychology – that peering into people’s minds – was held aloft as much as mediums, seances and spiritualism. People wanted to know: what’s inside us that is beyond biology, beyond previous rational explanation.

The young man took a seat at the very back of the packed hall, squeezed in between two much larger men. It created an overly heated, uncomfortable sandwich. Most people had taken off their hats once seated, but the young man kept his cap on his head, looking about him nervously.

The talk was over an hour long, with questions. The young man didn’t dare raise his hand, but his companions to the left and right started an excited discussion as soon as the lecture was finished.

“Sir Joshua Compton,” beamed the man to his right, shoving a large, square palm in front of the young man’s face. “And what do you think to all of this? I’m guessing this is your first public lecture, hmmmm? Stick with me, we shall see if we can inveigle ourselves into the company of our esteemed speaker. Then, perhaps, I might see you back to your lodgings?” Sir Joshua leaned heavily on his walking cane and gave a barely noticeable wink.

The young man reeled. He had not expected this predicament. So he nodded without speaking, and tried to bury his face further into his over-large collar. Sir Joshua took him by the forearm, and they had soon waded their way through the swathes of crowd to stand face to face with the speaker.

“Sir Joshua Compton,” said his companion, for the second time that evening, taking the speaker’s hand and shaking it up and down vigorously. “We are lucky to have you in London, sir. I hear that Vienna has required much of your time in the past few years.”

“Yes indeed,” replied Nathan, looking at the young man standing timorously next to Sir Joshua with more than a quizzical gaze. “Vienna society is very different to ours. They allow women to attend public lectures, for example.” He said all of this, as if he was addressing the boy instead of Sir Joshua. The young man retreated further into his shirt collar, if such a thing was possible.

“Sir Joshua – do you mind if I speak to your companion for some moments?” asked Nathan pleasantly, and the larger man, suffused with esteem for the speaker, nodded a yes:

“Although don’t keep him too long – he is accompanying me to the inn!”

“Charlotte…” whispered Nathan under his breath, as he guided her through a tide of insistent well-wishers.

“Charlie,” grumbled the young man. “It’s Charlie.”

Only once they were out into the open air and half way down the side street parallel to the hall, would Nathan finally stop. He came closer, and nudged the man’s cap so that the pinned hair came down in a curling cloud about Charlotte’s shoulders. “It was the only way I could attend your talk,” grinned Charlotte. “Men’s shirts are so uncomfortable,” she continued, pulling at the starched collar. Nathan just gazed at her, a smile on his face.

“I’ve never met anyone like you,” he said eventually.

“Me neither,” Charlotte assured him. Curling her finger under his waistcoat and tugging gently, she pulled him closer. “I was most impressed by the lecture. Would you care to tutor me further?”

“I most certainly would,” laughed Nathan, speaking quietly. “What would you like to learn?”

“Oh. Everything,” murmured Charlotte, a finger-breadth away. “Let’s stop talking now.”

Everything about that moment: the hot night under a flare of a gas-lit lamp; their temporary hiding place. Everything was perfect. Including the kiss. It was a kiss that Charlotte would still remember when she’d let herself in at the scullery door, divesting herself of her disguise. It was a kiss that Nathan would remember when he’d finally reached his uncle’s house in Hampstead, tired but elated. Both of them fell asleep, thinking of the other.

 

**Autumn**

“A traverse across the parks, and lunch at the Kensington museum,” Charlotte had suggested that Sunday. “What do you say?”

“A perfect plan,” agreed Nathan. He took her arm as they wandered down the streets to the uppermost corner of Hyde Park. From there, they would cross over into Kensington Gardens and follow the sinuous Serpentine, before reaching London’s museum quarter.

They now spent Sunday afternoons in this way, wandering as far afield as they liked. The parks and museums of the city were places they could abscond to. Charlotte kicked up the leaves as they walked, creating a funnelled path through the windfall from the trees.

She knew they would have to avoid the ornamental boating lake in Hyde Park, and she knew why, and she was glad Nathan had confided in her. She could sense that he was finally unfurling before her. Before, he was tightly wound, compact, impenetrable. Now, he was unwinding, hopeful; walking with a looser stride.

Her mother had warned Charlotte against their continued liaison: “You marry up in this world. Not sideways. Not down.”

“I don’t care in which direction I marry,” argued Charlotte. “So long as I feel content. And he’s not a fortune-hunter. Not in the slightest. He loves me for what I am, not how much of an inheritance I bring with me.”

“I hope you are right, Charlotte,” sighed her mother. “I dearly hope you are right.”

Charlotte had no doubts. No doubts at all. And on this autumn day, the low sun gilding the branches with golden light, she felt happier than most. She matched her stride to Nathan’s as they walked down the hill’s incline.

They decided to stop and rest by the Albert Memorial, Nathan taking her gloved hand into his and slowly unpeeling each finger of her glove until her hand was bare under his touch. He looked down at her palm pensively. Charlotte knew when he entered into such moods, he couldn’t be pried out of them, yet she was determined to dislodge the deep-seated darkness within him.

“What do you see?” she asked, attempting to interrupt his thoughts.

“In your hand?” he smiled, back in the real world again. “I see…” he brushed his fingertips lightly across her palm, the slight touch setting off a feeling she didn’t want to banish. “I see kindness, passion…”

“A long life?” she teased him.

“A long life, yes. Many children. A loving husband.” Now the grin was beginning to spread across his face. Other, more circumspect couples quietly tutted their displeasure as they walked past. Ungloved, unbeseeming, unladylike. Charlotte didn’t care for their judgement. She wanted to do whatever she pleased.

“A loving husband, you say? Does it say when I will meet him?” asked Charlotte to her fortune-teller, leading him on.

“Right about now, in fact,” Nathan let go of her hand, and carefully slipped her glove back on, looking at her with a slight smile all the while. “Although I have heard that palm-reading is a very imprecise science.”

“It’s precise enough for me,” she said, making their unspoken meaning clearer. That was when they both knew, although it wouldn’t be said aloud for some more months.

**Winter**

“Take this, and hang it up… there,” guided Charlotte, naturally taking charge.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Nathan, laughing. She nudged him and he nearly fell off his precarious perch on the chair. “How’s that?”

“Perfect,” admired Charlotte, standing back so she had a better vantage point of the angel atop the tree, and a better vantage point of her fiancé.

“May I climb down now?” asked Nathan, after some moments of still standing atop the chair.

“Oh yes. I’m sorry. I was admiring… the angel,” smiled Charlotte. “ _Glad tidings of great joy I bring…_ ”

“ _To you and all mankind_ ,” finished Nathan, leaping down and catching her in an embrace before her mother and sisters re-entered the room. “When shall we tell them?” he whispered to her.

“Tonight,” she promised him. “Tonight. Just think… Mrs Charlotte Appleby. And may I still do as I wish, once we are married?”

“I shall make that my solemn vow to you,” Nathan bent to kiss her. “Now, what did you say about the cook’s pudding?”

“That it’s to be avoided at all costs,” advised Charlotte. “She nearly kills the sponge with rum.”

“Although… that might be useful, if I’m to endure another evening of your mother’s conversation,” grinned Nathan.

“True! Harsh, but true…” admonished Charlotte. “In that case, have as much of the pudding as you wish. Only not too much, for you must help me make our announcement later.”

“Yes indeed, Mrs Appleby,” smiled Nathan, his cheeks flushed.

“Not yet. Although I might practise saying it now, until it feels familiar on my tongue. Mrs Charlotte Appleby. Mrs Char-lotte Ap-ple-by.”

Interrupted by her sisters bounding into the room, admiring the tree, she whispered that name to herself once more for luck, before taking Nathan’s hand and standing by his side. The tree really did look resplendent, but its splendour was nothing compared to the joy she was feeling inside.

**Spring**

“Dearly beloved. We are gathered here to witness this man and this woman join together in the sight of God….” The vicar in his robes spoke the time-honoured words of the ceremony.

Nathan didn’t really hear those words. He had his own, tucked into his pocket. That was his ceremony. That would be his declaration of love.

And after the dinner, and the dancing, and once the last of their wedding guests had departed, they could finally be alone. Charlotte gratefully undid her dress, unrolled her stockings, and twirled in her petticoats about the bedroom, making Nathan laugh. Once she’d subsided giddily onto their bed, he reached over to where he’d hung his jacket on the door, and passed her a sealed envelope.

“What is it?” asked Charlotte, intrigued.

“It’s a small something. The words in the ceremony didn’t really reflect how I feel. So I wrote this.” He was alternately excited and embarrassed for her to read it.

Charlotte opened the envelope carefully, her corset fastenings half undone and her legs tucked under her. She read the contents for some moments, and then looked up. She had tears starting in her eyes. “From nothing, to everything?”

“From nothing, to everything,” he replied. “That’s what you mean to me.”

“I don’t think anyone has written anything so beautifully poetic before,” declared Charlotte.

“Shakespeare and Shelley beg to differ,” replied Nathan, sitting down next to her on the bed. “But this has been a day full of words. Now it’s just us, here. Together.”

……

Charlotte woke early the next day. She felt for the folded paper she’d discarded on the nightstand, and crept behind the silent folds of the curtain and onto the windowseat, to read Nathan’s message again:

_Before you, I had nothing. I was nothing._

_Then you burst across that blank, black sky like_

_A star trailing its light through the heavens,_

_And I knew that my love for you_

_Would be boundless, infinite_

_Reach across the universe and stretch into the far out beyond._

_Before I had you, I was nothing._

_This love has brought me_

_From nothing, to everything._

_Stars could shatter, the sky cloud up and still_

_I’d have you. I’d have you._

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to read about how Nathan and Charlotte first met, that’s recollected in ch2 of [‘Those Who Are Left Behind’](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11310351/)


End file.
